7/29/2019 Sheryl Sandberg: By the Book

1/3

Sheryl Sandberg: By the BookThe chief operating officer of Facebook and author of Lean In doesnt like to use the iPad Kindleapp on the elliptical. When you get sweaty, you cant turn the pages.What was the best book you read last year?

I absolutely loved Tina Feys Bossypants and didnt want it to end. Its hilarious as well asimportant. Not only did I laugh on every page, but I was nodding along, highlighting and dog-earinglike crazy. On Page 3, she offers amazing advice to women in the workplace: No pigtails, no tubetops. Cry sparingly. (Some people say, Never let them see you cry. I say, if youre so mad you could

just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.) It is so, so good. As a young girl, I was labeled bossy, too, soas a former O.K., current bossypants, I am grateful to Tina for being outspoken, unapologeticand hysterically funny.When and where do you like to read? Paper or electronic?I probably shouldnt admit this since I work in the tech industry, but I still prefer reading paper books.(In Lean In, I also admit that I carry a notebook and pen around to keep track of my to-do list,which, at Facebook, is like carrying around a stone tablet and chisel.) I travel with an iPad, but athome I like holding a book open and being able to leaf through it, highlight with a real yellow penand dog-ear important pages. After I finish a book, Ill often look to see how many page corners areturned down as one gauge of how much I liked it. I also still read newspapers and magazines theold-fashioned way; I tried the Kindle app for the iPad on the elliptical, but when you get sweaty, youcant turn the pages.

Are you a fast or slow reader? How many books would you say you read in a year?

I am painfully slow and dont get through nearly as many books as I want to. I pile them up on mynight stand, and when the piles start tipping over, I force myself to speed up or to give up on theones that, realistically, I am never going to get to.Recommend the best business book youve read in recent years.Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton. This book has beeninstrumental in how we think about developing talent at Facebook. Like all organizations, we have asystem for giving feedback to our employees. A few years ago, Lori Goler, Facebooks head ofhuman resources, brought Marcus to meet with our leadership team to help us improve this system.Marcus and his colleagues surveyed employees for 25 years to figure out what factors predict

extraordinary performance. They found that the most important predictor of the success of acompany or division was how many people answered yes to the question Do you have theopportunity to do what you do best every day? And this makes sense. Most performance reviewsfocus more on development areas (a k a weaknesses) than strengths. People are told to workharder and get better at those areas, but people dont have to be good at everything. At Facebook,we try to be a strengths-based organization, which means we try to make jobs fit around peoplerather than make people fit around jobs. We focus on what peoples natural strengths are and spendour management time trying to find ways for them to use those strengths every day.

And whats the best book about technology? Is there a book that really gets Silicon Valley right?

The Lean Startup: How Todays Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create RadicallySuccessful Businesses, by Eric Ries, provides a great inside look at how the tech industryapproaches building products and businesses. Traditionally, companies have depended onelaborate business plans and in-depth tests to put out a perfect product. Ries advocates that fortech, a better way to perfect a product is to introduce it to the market and get customers using it and

7/29/2019 Sheryl Sandberg: By the Book

2/3

giving feedback, so you can learn and then iterate. (Facebook figured out this approach long ago.We even have posters all over our buildings that remind people, Stay Focused & Keep Shipping.)Who are your favorite authors?Michael Lewiss ability to boil down the most complicated subjects is like a magic trick. You cantbelieve your eyes. He takes on important issues from the 2008 Wall Street crash in The BigShort to parenting in Home Game and breaks them down to their deepest truths. His

combination of an extraordinary analytical mind and a deep understanding of human nature allowshim to weave together data and events to offer a fresh and insightful narrative. Whatever the topic,the result is always compelling and even thrilling. I am in awe of him.Somewhere in that pile of books on my night stand sits a well-worn copy of Anna Quindlens AShort Guide to a Happy Life. Ive read it before and I will read it again and just knowing its atmy bedside gives me comfort. Her wisdom resonates for me on the deepest level: But you are theonly person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just yourlife at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind,but the life of your heart. Perfect.

I cant list my favorite authors without including my college roommate Caroline Weber. I love herbooks because I hear about them from start to finish with the many ups and downs that go intopublishing. Much of what she writes is for the comp lit crowd not tech execs but she is alwayswilling to explain passages to me. In 2007, she published the brilliant and fun Queen of Fashion:What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. There are few books that I have enjoyed as much.

And while I admit Im biased, its not just me The Washington Post Book World named it one ofthe best books of the year.How do you organize your personal library? Do you hold on to all books or do you like tostreamline?

My husband is a streamliner; I am a pack rat. Ive even hung on to all my textbooks from college you know, just in case I have the sudden urge to read Schopenhauers The World as Will andRepresentation.What are your most cherished books, and where do you keep them?I keep my books from Helen Vendlers college class on American poets in my night stand (insidethe drawer, not to be confused with the stack piled up on top). Professor Vendler says that you dontown a poem until you memorize it, and I agree. Every year my New Years resolution is to meditatefor just five minutes a day. I never do it, but when I recite one of the poems I memorized, I think it

comes close to having the same effect.What book should every business executive read?Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values, by Fred Kofman, had a profound effecton my career and life. I think about his lessons almost every day the importance of authenticcommunication, impeccable commitments, being a player not a victim, and taking responsibility. Ihave given this book to so many team members at work, and Ive seen it inspire people overnight tobe more aware of their actions and impact on others.What were your favorite books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from one of

those books? Is there one book you wish all children would read?I wanted to be Meg Murry, the admittedly geeky heroine of A Wrinkle in Time, by MadeleineLEngle. I loved how she worked with others to fight against an unjust system and how she fought tosave her family against very long odds. I was also captivated by the concept of time travel. I keep

7/29/2019 Sheryl Sandberg: By the Book

3/3

asking Facebooks engineers to build me a tesseract so I, too, could fold the fabric of time andspace. But so far no one has even tried.Choosing one book (and album) for all children to read is easy: Marlo Thomass Free to Be Youand Me. Its messages are sadly still relevant today, but its stories are beautifully written.What books have you enjoyed reading with your own children? Is there a book you particularly loveto read to them?

I cherish the day my daughter learned to recite Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too from ShelSilversteins Where the Sidewalk Ends. Just thinking about it makes me smile. And both my kidsfirst learned to understand numbers from Silversteins poem Smart.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

I would love to meet J. K. Rowling and tell her how much I admire her writing and am amazed by herimagination. I read every Harry Potter book as it came out and looked forward to each new one. Iam rereading them now with my kids and enjoying them every bit as much. She made me look at

jelly beans in a whole new way.